Atari - 1983
Atari - 1983
A
friend of my wife was heading up a charity auction and was looking for
donations. Knowing of my hobby (obsession) she asked my wife if I could donate a
game. Because it was for a good cause, I agreed.
Now, I wasn't going to give up any of *my* machines, so the hunt for a suitable donor began. I had the following criteria: non-violent, nice looking and cheap. I went to several auctions but didn't see anything I liked.
Then, one day, I got a lead on a guy with a shed full of games he wanted to get rid of. So, my buddy and I went up to look. Well, the shed was full of beat conversions and shuffle bowlers, but there were a few machines that had potential. This was one of them.
I had never heard of Arabian before, so when I got home I checked it out in KLOV and then fired it up in MAME. Although I found the game play rather uninteresting, apparently my kids and my friend's kids found it fun. Plus, it did meet all my criteria. So I went back and picked it up.
This cabinet was disgusting. It was totally grimy and gray with years of dirt caked up on both the inside and the outside. Surprisingly, when I plugged it in, it worked! The monitor needed a cap-kit (badly), the marquee light was dead and the controls were a bit sticky, but, it played.
So I made a deal with my wife - I would do the internals and she would clean it up.
All I can say is that she took machine beautification to a new level! This thing came out amazingly beautiful! As a matter of fact, it came out so nice that I submitted these pictures to KLOV where they now are on permanent display.
The charity auction went great. People played the game all night long and it ended up selling for more than I would have imagined. The machine was bought by the director of a youth center where the game now resides.
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